October 2 — a truer sailing lesson and clearer voyage planning

This update rebuilds the optional sailing lesson around the same river and ship systems used in the voyage itself, makes crew and loadout choices easier to understand, and adds a fuller Hajj journey with calendar-bound passages.

A sailing lesson that matches the voyage

• The tutorial river now uses the ordinary world’s river geometry and rendering, so its width and banks teach the same navigation the captain will encounter after departure.
• Ship handling, shore hauling, the HUD, and menus now share their normal voyage implementations. Hauling can bring a vessel forward or stop it, but can no longer drag the ship backwards.
• Canoes avoid and collide with one another instead of merging into one sprite, and defeated boats visibly sink rather than disappearing.
• Crossing the channel’s exit line advances the lesson even when a fast frame carries the ship beyond the exact waypoint.
• Standard sailing music now accompanies the lesson, with the normal combat cue when the canoes arrive.

Pilgrimage and passage

• Hajj passage now follows the Islamic lunar calendar. Passengers clearly state their deadline, remind the captain as it approaches, and leave disappointed if they miss it.
• After arriving at Jeddah, the captain may undertake the pilgrimage and later carry the passenger home. Existing saves with the older untimed Hajj voyage remain valid.
• The shared game calendar now handles leap years consistently across voyages, observances, and weather.

Crew, ships, and cargo

• Experience diamonds now explain the crewmate’s level and its effect on ship handling.
• Bow, crossbow, and matchlock symbols explain who can fire from the deck during naval combat.
• Ship exchanges can now lead into a proper cargo and crew adjustment flow rather than simply disabling the choice. Captains may review the complete exchange, undo changes, or back out before anything is committed. At a lawful port, discarded trade cargo can be sold at market rate.
• Fresh water has its own presentation in ship exchanges instead of masquerading as an ordinary trade good.

Interface and reliability

• The Options menu now includes a developer-feedback form for bugs and confusing experiences, with a separate review step before anything is sent.
• Japanese market text, German provision labels, and ship-information layouts have been tightened without distorting pixel text.
• Language-to-font selection is now explicit, and the release gate verifies that the accessible Atkinson face is present in the Windows package.
• Repeated Options-screen text and row layout work is cached, reducing stalls on slower machines.
• Dynamic dialogue and composed labels now pass through the same localization boundary as ordinary screen text; every bundled locale is regenerated and checked before release.

Thank you to everyone who has kept sending saves, screenshots, and precise steps. They have been especially valuable in making the tutorial behave like the voyage it is meant to teach.

Also included in the current Steam demo (build 25688924).